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"You have some," he retorted. "If you didn't, you wouldn't be here."

The beer churned in his stomach. If he didn't keep his I take slow and steady, he was liable to throw up still; damn thing was sensitive still from the Sahara. But Jack was feeling a thin haze fall over him, so at least eating so little was doing him some favors.

"S'easy to think you don't, though," he said to the wall across from him where Zero hung near stencils of graves and bats. "So very easy to categorize people the way I always have. More than a year later and nothing's changed except everything else." With a rueful smile, he took another swig of booze, barely tasting it, and was quiet for a moment.

"Haven't told Hanna yet," he said. "She's still getting her bearings. She's been...off base for more than a year." It wasn't prudent to mention being podded for more than a couple of years, he felt; that certainly would have been a point of pride to him. "I don't know if she knows all about the legacies either. There's a lot she's got to be filled in on. My s**t's not a huge priority until she's comfortable again and not dizzy from all that info. Hanna's in Death anyway, can't throw it all in at once or we'll be discussing everything point by point for two straight days."

He almost sounded fond as he spoke. Sounded like how he would tackle things if he needed that big of an update at any rate: ruthless grilling and a s**t ton of coffee.

"You ever think about Patrick?" Jack asked abruptly, still not looking at Ian. "What you would've done if he showed up again, or if he hadn't died?"

"Feh. Boxes? You really think my system would be as simple as labeled boxes?" he asked, a corner of his lips tugging up.

He didn't believe he had changed at all. Degraded, maybe, definitely slipped up, but not really changed. A year ago he had helped kill a woman to survive because he was sure if he had been the one downed, someone would have done the same. Two months ago he had killed and then partially eaten someone to survive because he was sure Weasley would have killed and eaten him if he didn't. Even now he could drift and catch himself assessing and reassessing not just himself but the caliber of people surrounding him: people as exuberant, as goofy, as dickish, as survivalist, as stoic, as adventurous, as stubborn, as strong, as weak, as easily definable and not so easily definable as they were. He was still Jack ******** Hawthorn. Them? They were like rewatching movies years after the first time, remembering the same storylines but coming to understand there was more to them than he first believed.

He could slowly, ever so slowly accept that certain people were multifaceted, but that didn't make him any different or any less stubborn than before. Toleration and friendship, these were inevitabilities, not conscious choices on his part. Symptoms of humanity. Dangerous, wire-thin things he kept examining, testing, wondering: How much is enough? Where is the line drawn between trust and liability? Finn had asked him if he was trusted, and his answer was as much a diversion as it was pieces of the truth. If he had really changed, why hadn't he told anyone about the clones yet? It wasn't even a damaging secret. His habit of not sharing his thoughts, of believing the less people know about me the better, was just too rooted as evidenced even now.

"You're a lot of guys. They're all okay."

More beer was gulped down.

Realizing he hadn't spoken in a while, he turned his head to Ian, noting the Moon's visual sweep of his desk. "Your sticky notes've been useful," Jack commented idly. "Some dumb b*****d keeps stealing some off me at work, they're that popular." The red t-rexes were gone and the yellow ankylosaurus was back at his cubicle; only the blue brontosaurus and the green triceratops were in his room.

He considered Ian's answer for a longer span of time and slouched forward, arms propped on his knees. He became noticeably more bitter. "Least he stayed dead so you'd never have to worry. Lucky you."

A snicker broke through his stoic expression. Then another. Then Jack started chuckling and softly laughing, and it was hard to tell what exactly Ian had said that triggered it. "A lot," was his lame answer as he sipped his beer, straightened, and laid out on his bed, legs bent and feet propped over the headboard.

"What'd you do?" Jack asked. "How'd you deal with it before Deus?"

"No." An overtly forced casual tone, a tinge of his usual sarcasm. "No, nothing so mundane." He pushed himself back against his pillow, trying to get comfortable for an uncomfortable topic and failing. "Just keep going back to the Sahara is all. You'd think I'd be over it but nah, s**t, it's like having ******** acid reflux of the mind. Just ******** bubbles up all the time."

He drank more beer. "D'I tell you I got my a** left behind by my own team there?" he asked, more casual and less sarcastic, like just another hilarious tale of hunter hijinks. "What m'I saying, 'course I haven't. Haven't told anyone! S'not even a surprise, I should've seen it coming. ******** trainee on a team've hunters? Yeah, I'd leave my a** behind too."

"Ruthless calculus."

He gave Ian a humorless smile over his socks.

"I'll explain. You go in with a team've seven. Used to be eight, but that's another story. You go in with seven and you split them up, two, four, and one, because Lina's got to be a ******** show off--Lina, Stormy Ortega, 'fuking-ever--and naturally it goes to s**t when you do, right? It'll go t's**t regardless, but all I had was my ******** buddy with good aim.

"We're sneaking into the lair, right? Trying a side door've sorts 'cause the front's just ******** suicide if you ask me. And we end up getting cornered in a lab full've ********> He waved his can vaguely. "Blank slates. Mannequins. Almost clones. And we get swarmed. Then I wake up real ******** sore on a slab and naked, and V's dead next to me. No ******** pendants 'cause we got sent in to do damage, not t'get out. Maybe because of our records, hell if I know. I never bothered asking. So I claw my ******** way back like god ******** damn it 'cause no-one's coming, I dunno how long I've been out but they aren't coming. ******** made it sound remarkably blase.

"Fast forward a bit and I get this weird dream. Wasn't just I got left behind. I got ******** traded off so she could save other people. Ortega ********> Jack crunched the can in his hand, a stark sound in contrast to his voice. "--but like I said: ruthless calculus."

kuroopu

He sighed through his nose. "'Cause I like being difficult," he said evasively, like it was obvious. Jack knew it was a lot to throw at Ian at once and cursed that he had decided to do this while drunk (half-heartedly). He had kept so much to himself, actually trying to talk about anything was like link-hopping on Wikipedia, a constant journey to different topics to explain events that came after. It made perfect sense in his head; he had trouble remembering that wasn't so beyond it.

Except now his head was starting to feel fuzzy. Jack closed his eyes hard enough to wrinkle his brow. "One thing at a time, Ian," he groused, like it was his friend's fault he would have to untangle the knot of a conversation. "God, talking feels so...primitive. Can't I just thought transfer s**t t'you? That'd be nice." He slipped his glasses off, annoyed with the stupid things for simply existing, and set them on the bedside table. He then awkwardly finished off his bent can and dropped it beside him on the bed.

He held up one finger. "No clones on the island s'far as I know. They're under a horseman's control. Heard 'em on the last mission too, though, with the viral infection. Not mine, just others. Gotta watch your a**."

A second finger joined the first. "Valerie Reznekov. V. Death hunter. ******** her on my down time. Sweet tits, bland personality. 'Zactly the kind've girl who dies in a horror film so." That seemed to be that.

Three fingers. "Don't know what happened, but yeah. Something went down with the others and apparently she sac'd me n' V to save herself and the other two still alive." He had checked to see if their files were still around when he got back himself. Ian was given an emotionless smile. "I'd say I don't blame her--I would've done the same t'save my skin--but, well, when someone you used to love leaves you to die, it leaves a bit of a sting."

There was a pause, then a blink, and then a shadow fell over his features once more; he only belatedly realized what word he had used. If it was possible to feel betrayed by yourself, then that was what itched at him from under his skin, an unpleasant prickling sensation that spread up from his arms and spine. He turned his head, contemplating the decor again.

"No, s'not," he said after a while. "You reap what you sow. M'only now just startin' t'get that." And a lot longer to start caring about what that meant exactly.

"I dunno what you'd call it." He was retreating back behind the facade of someone more blase. "Maybe s'like what you had with Patrick. s**t, I thought she committed suicide for a couple've years too, so." Jack shrugged. "You just...don't get over your first, y'know?" Or maybe he was just really ******** pathetic.